Climate Protection

Since the introduction of the EU emissions trading scheme and the steady drop in available CO2 certificates, industry and energy suppliers are increasingly obliged to justify their CO2 emissions and to reduce these. Our experts support companies so that they can best position themselves on the emissions trading market.

By participating in emissions reduction projects in developing and threshold countries, referred to as Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation (CDM and JI) projects, tradable CO2 certificates can be generated and used for meeting obligations within the EU. But before such certificates can be issued, a complex approval and registration process must be negotiated. In numerous projects, our experienced consultants have supported these procedures through all value added stages.

The interception during industrial processes of CO2 followed by its sequestration from the environment, referred to as Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS, is coming increasingly to the fore when planning and constructing power plants. CO2 may be captured before, during, or after the combustion process. The post-combustion process, in which the CO2 contained in the flue gases is separated out by chemical absorption, has the advantage that it can also be integrated into existing power plants. Even now, when planning power plants to today’s standards, future requirements for backfitting CCS equipment is considered in the form of capture-ready concepts. Moreover, to raise the efficiency of CO2 separation in the future, pre-combustion technologies, like integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants and oxyfuel technology, are under trial.